This week’s column is a Q & A with edtech insider Doug Levin (Edtech coverage, the hype cycle, and media complicity) featuring a discussion of how the mainstream media covers education technology, whether it’s AltSchools, personalized learning, or cybersecurity. Outlets featured include the New York Times, Education Week, NBC News, and Montana’s Flathead Beacon.

Media participation in the hype cycle that Levin describes does parents, educators, and policymakers little good — and undercuts trust and credibility in the news outlets that contribute to it. Reporting the reality of how a school or program is working in practice is enormously important in helping readers understand education beyond spin and speculation.

PEOPLE

A big welcome to the beat to Michelle Hackman, the Wall Street Journal’s new DC-based education reporter (pictured). You can follow her on Twitter if you don’t already.

Adweek’s roundup of best podcasts of 2017 praised Raising Kings: “Powerful and deeply personal, [#RaisingKings] goes beyond today’s rhetoric of issues like race and crime to get at the complexity and difficulty of solving seemingly insurmountable obstacles.” EdWeek’s Kavitha Cardoza called the praise “a lovely way to start the new year.”

Kudos to NPR for following its policy against having staff reporters flog their own book projects in stories produced by the station, as in this story about screen time and kids. That being said, go out and buy Anya Kamenetz’s new book about parenting and screen time.

Predictions are journalism in its laziest, least accountable form. I hate myself for gobbling them up. Some recent examples include NPR’s Claudio Sanchez and EWA Radio (featuring Scott Jaschik and Gregg Toppo). EdSource’s John Fensterwald does it right by revealing how he did on last year’s predictions.

“The hurricane offered a clean slate reminiscent of education reform efforts in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina in 2005.” Really, The 74? At the very least this is tone deaf.

“Twenty sixteen and 2017 saw a flurry of coverage [of school segregation]— much of it lacking in context,” observed The 74’s Beth Hawkins. True enough, but ouch.

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Phi Delta Kappan offers timely, relevant, and provocative insights on K-12 education policy, research, curriculum, and professional development. Kappan readers include new and veteran teachers, graduate students, school and district administrators, university faculty members (researchers and teacher educators), and policy makers.